Male Indian cricketers are among the richest players of the sport in the world. And they just got richer with the Indian cricket board announcing new contracts for the players.
While members of the male cricket team are laughing their way to the bank, their female counterparts seem to have gotten a raw deal.
Captain of the Indian men’s team, Virat Kohli - who is also the number one ranked batsman in the One Day International and the Test format - will receive a retainer of Rs 7 crore ($1.4 million AUD).
He is one of the three players in a newly-added elite group that the BCCI is calling ‘Grade A+ ’. The others in the group are Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah.
The elite grade is followed by Grade A, Grade B and Grade C with players in those groups receiving Rs 5cr ($1 million), Rs 3 cr ($600,000) and Rs 1 cr ($200,000).
Virat Kohli celebrates his hundred during the second one-day international cricket match between India and Australia in Nagpur. AAP Image/AP Photo/Rajanish Kaka Source: AP
The salary of India’s women cricketers is just a fraction of what their male counterparts are set to receive.
Under the new salary structure announced for the period between October 2018 and September 2019, Grade A women cricketers will receive Rs 5 million ($100,000) while Grade B and C women players will receive $60,000 and $20,000 respectively in their annual salary.
The Grade A women players include Harmanpreet Kaur, Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav. While Mandhana is the current no. 1 woman ODI batter in the world, Captain Mithali Raj is at the no 4 spot. Fast bowler Jhulan Goswami who is in Grade B, is the number one ranked bowler.
Source: BCCI
The new retainers were announced just a day before the world celebrates the International Women’s Day, a fact not lost on many Indian cricket fans.
Women’s cricket in India officially started in 1973 with the formation of the Women’s Cricket Association of India. However, it was only in 2006 when following insistence of the International Cricket Council, that the association was merged with the BCCI despite the reluctance of the Indian board - the richest cricket board in the world.
Cricket journalist Vimal Kumar says the disparity between the salaries of male and female crickets may be glaring and it might take a long time to reduce the gap, but it’s moving in the right direction.
Smriti Mandhana AAP Image/Rob Blakers Source: AAP
“Women’s cricket became a part of the BCCI only because the ICC insisted on it. Until about five years, very few people knew about women’s cricket, who the cricketers were and how they play. But today, that awareness is there and it’s growing. “
“It’s not just in India, the gap is there in every cricket-playing country, including Australia.”
I would say, the gap between the men and women’s cricket is there, it may be very slow to bridge but it’s moving in the right direction,” Mr Kumar told SBS Punjabi.
